Suspected I.R.A. Member Arrested With Fake Bills

By SARAH LYALL

Published: February 12, 1989

A man who Federal officials say is a member of the Irish Republican Army is being held on charges of carrying $13,500 in counterfeit $50 bills at La Guardia Airport, where he was arrested last week.

The suspect, Donal Patrick Moyna, 29 years old, of Dublin, was about to board a plane for Providence, R.I., on Tuesday when he was stopped by agents of the United States Secret Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said Andrew J. Maloney, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

Mr. Maloney said the agents had been trailing Mr. Moyna after seeing him using counterfeit money several times since his arrival in New York two days earlier.

The agents found $400 in fake money in Mr. Moyna's pocket and $13,100 more in his suitcase, Mr. Maloney said. Would Face Up to 15 Years

Mr. Moyna has been held without bail. If convicted, he could face up to 15 years in prison.

''He appears to have ties to the I.R.A.,'' Mr. Maloney said, referring to the Irish Republican Army, which is battling British authorities and Protestant groups for control of Northern Ireland.

On Monday, the suspect was ''observed by the F.B.I. attempting to pass a counterfeit $50 bill'' at a restaurant on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, said Jack Wenik, an assistant United States attorney.

Mr. Moyna told authorities that he had then used three of the bills at the Milford Plaza Hotel in midtown Manhattan, Mr. Wenik said. $2 Million Seized in Dublin Mr. Maloney said the counterfeit $50 bills carried by Mr. Moyna were similar to those seized in an undercover operation in Dublin last fall. In that operation, he said, Irish and United States officials confiscated more than $2 million in counterfeit United States money that they said was being used to finance the travels of I.R.A. members around the world.

In 1983, Mr. Moyna was given a two-year suspended sentence after he was convicted of taking part in a riot at the British Embassy in Dublin in 1981.

Officials said they would not discuss what Mr. Moyna was doing in New York. They said he had planned to return to Ireland today.